1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a hook-and-eye fastener having a recurved hook and used for fastening together two pieces of a garment such as trousers and skirts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional hook-and-eye fasteners, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,983 issued to Fukuroi et al. on Feb. 3, 1987, comprise a recurved hook made of brass, an eye made of brass and adapted to have the hook caught thereon, and retainers made of brass, adapted severally to fix the hook and the eye, and disposed on the side of a fabric opposite to the side thereof on which the hook and the eye are seated. The hook and the eye are each provided integrally with a pair of engaging prongs adapted to be fixed in the relevant retainers. The retainers severally have formed therein a pair of through holes adapted to be inserted thereinto by the pair of engaging prongs. The fixation of the hook and the eye to the fabric is accomplished by positioning the retainers on the opposite side of the fabric, inserting the engaging prongs of the hook and the eye through the fabric into the through holes of the retainers, and then bending the engaging prongs inwardly toward each other thereby joining the hook and the eye infallibly to the respective retainers. Incidentally, the leading end parts of the engaging prongs are formed in a sharply pointed acute angle shape as indicated by a two-dot chain line in FIG. 4 so as to facilitate the penetration of the engaging prongs through the fabric.
In the prior art hook-and-eye fastener described above, the insertion of the engaging prongs into the through holes of the retainers entails the problem that the engaging prongs having sharply pointed leading terminals force their way between adjacent component threads of the fabric while dragging the fabric into the through holes and leaving wrinkles behind in the fabric around the sites of insertion. Further, the insertion of the engaging prongs into tile through holes poses the problem that the leading end parts of the engaging prongs catch hold of threads of the fabric while piercing the fabric, drag the threads in the longitudinal and lateral direction of the fabric in the parts of the insertion of the engaging prongs and, as a result, impart a distortion to the pattern of the fabric in the parts in which the drag of threads has taken place and gather longitudinal and lateral wrinkles in the affected parts of the fabric.
For the purpose of restraining this phenomenon of the dragging of threads, hook-and-eye fasteners which have through holes in the retainers covered with a thin plate of aluminum as disclosed in published Japanese Utility Model Application, KOKAI (Early Publication) No. HEI 4-112,612 have been proposed to the art. In this case, when the engaging prongs are inserted into the through holes, the fabric is dragged into the through holes with difficulty because the thin plate holds the fabric in place. In this case, however, the separate thin plate covering the through holes is inevitably applied to the retainers. Thus, these hook-and-eye fasteners entail the problem that the number of component parts increases and the process of manufacture gains in complexity proportionately. Moreover, they still entail the problem that the sharply pointed leading end parts of the engaging prongs catch hold of threads of the fabric and drag them into the through holes. Similarly to those of the former version described above, these hook-and-eye fasteners tend to impart wrinkles to the fabric during the insertion of the engaging prongs.